Paul McCartney Announces First 2018 Tour Dates

Paul McCartney announced the first four dates of a 2018 tour entitled “Freshen Up,” which will support the release of his new solo album Egypt Station. The listed shows take place in Canada from Sept. 17-30, which, alongside his previously-announced appearance at Austin City Limits in Texas in October, suggests that he’ll be making more North American appearances during the fall. You can see the currently known dates below.

Egypt Station is McCartney’s first solo LP since 2013’s New, and includes the tracks “Come On to Me” and “I Don’t Know,” which are packaged as a double-A-sided release. “I liked the words ‘Egypt Station,'" he said in a statement. "It reminded me of the ‘album’ albums we used to make. Egypt Station starts off at the station on the first song and then each song is like a different station. So, it gave us some idea to base all the songs around that. I think of it as a dream location that the music emanates from."

Ahead of the tour announcement, he said he hoped to be able to play more low-key concerts alongside his large-scale shows. “It not only takes you back to where you started, but there's the intimacy in the audience, and you can have a lot of fun,” he explained. “And you sometimes don't feel like it's quite so precious. Because if there's 40,000 people who paid all that money, you've gotta think about pleasing them. If there's only a couple hundred, and we're all having a party, you just think, 'We can throw in “Matchbox,”or we'll throw in an odd number that we'd only do at sound checks or something.’ So they're good fun for that reason.”